In a panel discussion led by Nathan Marasigan, Partner at MLaw, with YGG Co-Founder Beryl Li and Coins.ph CEO Wei Zhou, it was emphasized how web3 games are offering Filipinos learning and earning opportunities through NFTs, AI, and decentralized infrastructure.
- The discussion happened during the press conference for the upcoming YGG Play Summit on October 23, 2027.
In Focus: The YGG Play Summit was an event focused on web3 gaming’s future, featuring a hackathon, game expo, esports tournaments, and insights from industry leaders on gaming, digital ownership, and global web3 projects.
The following excerpt from the discussion highlighted how web3 gaming guild protocol YGG and local crypto exchange Coins.ph are creating new learning and earning opportunities for Filipinos by using NFTs, AI, and decentralized technology to turn gaming into a path for skill-building and income.
Interview: Play, Learn, and Work Panel Discussion
YGG’s Origins and Transition
Nathan Marasigan, Partner, MLaw: I think the name of this panel is “How Web3 Games Provide Learning and Earning Opportunities.”
So I’ll start with Beryl. I’d like to learn more from your perspective, as someone who’s founded one of the biggest web gaming guilds in the world—definitely the biggest one in the Philippines. How are web3 games providing learning and earning opportunities for Filipinos?
Beryl Li, Co-Founder, YGG: YGG is like four years old. We actually started in the year 2020, where we acquired a lot of valuable gaming assets in the form of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) with a game called Axie Infinity.
We started lending these out to communities in the Philippines and the rest of Southeast Asia, India, Latin America, and so on. While they borrowed these assets, they played and actually earned in-game rewards.
So we saw that model as very interesting and we expanded by diversifying into other game titles, giving opportunities for income generation or alternative income for our communities from around the world.
This year, 2024, we started building a questing product in the form of our Guild Advancement Program, as well as SuperQuest. These are task-based quests, so they allow community members to learn and earn at the same time. We’ve also recently partnered with emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI), DePin (decentralized physical infrastructure networks), and robotics.
For instance, we’re able to provide quests that allow them to train models for our partners. Through this, we’re really upskilling communities by having them go through these questing programs.
Marasigan: That’s really interesting. Thanks for that answer. I actually saw a number of news articles about YGG transitioning from a traditional guild into a protocol. Could you talk quickly about what that means for YGG?
Li: Oh yes! So, we’ve transitioned from being a guild and now we’ve actually built a set of standards with various modules.
Guilds can now form themselves—like, a group of friends can build an on-chain guild on top of the protocol. They’ll be able to pull out various modules, such as, for example, wallets or messaging functionality. Through these, they can become small to medium enterprises. They can even play with one another, like guild versus guild, where we’ll see more eSports and on-chain competitions. They could also pull out a questing module.
Right now, YGG facilitates all these quests, but in the future, we are looking into enabling guilds to DIY quests—do-it-yourself quests. They could use that to acquire users or educate users about their products, and so on. So yeah, we’re building on-chain guilds on top of the protocol.
Coins.ph’s Role in Learning and Earning Opportunities
Marasigan: Okay, Wei, maybe I could ask you about what you see as the learning and earning opportunities for Filipinos in the metaverse, and how Coins is enabling this?
Do you have any tools or programs right now that are enabling access to these opportunities?
Wei Zhou, Chief Executive Officer, Coins.ph: I’ll speak a little bit about something that’s bigger than just play-to-earn. I think there are a lot of play-to-earn opportunities, but when token prices go up or down, that changes the magnitude of your earning potential. As long as you put in the work, though, there are many cool things in the on-chain world that don’t exist offline.
To put it in context, Coins has been around for 10 years now, but it’s really like a two-year startup since 2022. For those who don’t know, I worked with a private equity fund, and we bought out Coins two years ago. We basically started from scratch in terms of rebuilding, rehiring, and re-engaging with the community here.
In the last few years, we’ve brought in a lot of international projects to be listed. When we bought Coins in 2022, we had only five tokens listed. Today, we have close to 100 tokens listed, all traded directly against pesos. A lot of these projects come from Japan, Korea, the US, Europe, and other parts of the world. They want access to users here—especially gamers and those in the DePin or VIP Coins space.
What we’ve done is hosted a lot of events for our users. Down the road, I hope we can do more work with YGG because you guys have a massive gaming portfolio. Hopefully, we can collaborate on a global level, not just here in the Philippines.
Exploring DePin and AI Applications
Marasigan: Quick follow-up, Wei, if you don’t mind, we’ve been saying terms like AI and DePin. Could you dive deeper into what DePin means? I’m sure there are people here who don’t know.
Zhou: The reference point I like to use is, if you’re familiar with Axie Infinity, where NFTs are digital items that you can put into a setting to earn tokens, DePin is similar, but with physical items. For example, one of the projects we listed is called Hive Mapper, which uses a token called Honey. What they’ve done is build a mapping dash cam that you can put in your car or moped. As you drive and map roads in real-time, you earn Honey tokens based on how many kilometers you’ve mapped.
The question I often get is, “Where does the value come from?” You earn Honey tokens for mapping roads, but won’t the token’s value just deflate if there’s too much data? Well, Hive Mapper has a token sink. The real-time mapping data is aggregated and sold to companies like Grab or Uber, who need up-to-date maps.
Google Maps, for example, might be updated every few years, but roads—especially in developing economies like Southeast Asia—change all the time. Hive Mapper tokens incentivize people to map roads in real-time. What we did was give out 30-40 dash cams to a group of Grab drivers, so now they’re mapping roads and earning tokens just by doing their regular work. It’s an interesting dynamic where Grab is buying the software while the drivers are mapping it.
These physical infrastructure projects, like Hive Mapper, are examples of DePin. Another example would be the Solana phone, which ties into DePin and opens up new learning and earning opportunities.
YGG’s Future-of-Work Program
Marasigan: Beryl, you also mentioned AI. I know YGG is looking at how to leverage these technologies. Could you talk a bit more about that, and maybe explain your future-of-work program?
Li: Yes, this ties into what Wei just mentioned about mapping. We have a partner called FrodoBots, and we recently launched a project where players are driving physical robots to map sidewalks. As they do this, they earn tokens. We sent some players to Abu Dhabi for a competition where they were driving these robots to map areas. This is an example of a DePin project, but there are others.
One involves providing spare processing power—whether storage or processing power—to reinforce AI data models. This is crucial in training AI. For example, if you’re not using your phone, you could lend out your device’s processing power with the click of a button, and people would pay to rent it. You would earn rewards as a lender of processing power.
We recently launched a questing program that educates community members on how they can be part of this growth. As we tap into these DePin projects and train AI models, we’re also upskilling people. In one example, we partnered with Sapiens Navigate to train natural language processing models. If someone has a good command of English, they can help correct sentences, which might expand into deeper applications, like training AI for medical purposes. For instance, nurses or doctors could help train medical data models in their spare time and earn rewards. These are the kinds of things we’re working on as part of YGG’s future-of-work program.
Coins.ph’s Global Expansion
Marasigan: I’ve been talking to many new companies and innovative technologies, and there are exciting ones where you can share your bandwidth and earn money from it—it’s fascinating stuff. So, Wei, I want to ask you about Coins’ global expansion. I’ve seen in the news that you’re taking Coins from Coins.PH to Coins.XYZ.
What’s your vision for this, and how do you see it bringing value back to Filipinos, especially since the Philippines is your home base?
Zhou: Yeah, something I always mention is that we want to take Coins global. We want to be one of the first fintechs from the Philippines to go global because our users are global. There are around 15 million Filipinos working outside of the Philippines, and we want to service them, too. We’re starting in a couple of jurisdictions, with Australia being the first place we’ll launch Coins.XYZ. We want to replicate our success in other regions.
Some of what YGG has done is very innovative, and I think other companies have tried to copy their business model in regional markets. Similarly, as one of the earliest regulated crypto exchanges, we’ve gained experience by integrating not just with the crypto community but also with the broader finance community. Whether in payments, lending, or other areas, we’ve had a lot of touchpoints, and we plan to apply this knowledge globally.
In terms of direct benefits for our community, if you have a successful project and you want to onboard users from different countries, go for it. We also plan to open different types of launchpads or launch pools on our global platform, which will be less restrictive than in the Philippines. We could offer services like fundraising via blockchain or stablecoin yield products in these jurisdictions.
One of our missions is to bring high-quality global projects to the Philippines, and vice versa. We also want to give Filipinos access to global markets by listing Philippine projects internationally.
AI and Gamified Learning
Marasigan: Beryl, you mentioned AI earlier. Are there any other AI-related projects or initiatives YGG is working on that you can talk about before we wrap up?
Li: Yes, we work with a lot of AI companies, and they use our platform when they want to train their data models. We connect them with our community members to gamify the experience. For example, data labeling is usually boring work, but we turned it into a game where people can earn as they help label data.
This gamification is a new learning and earning opportunity for our members. They can be involved in training AI while also gaining knowledge and experience. It’s part of our goal to make YGG a place where people can grow their skills and earn rewards at the same time.
Marasigan: As someone from the community, you’re training the AI, right?
Li: Yes, exactly.
Marasigan: Interesting. For Coins, do you see yourselves leveraging AI as well, Wei?
Zhou: Yes, I see a huge opportunity with AI, especially since we run a trading platform. We have a lot of data—both public and proprietary—and we’re exploring how we can use AI to bring more value to our users. The on-chain data is mostly public, but we also have proprietary data from our users.
What we want to do is bring more alpha to our users. AI agents can help sift through on-chain data and provide personalized insights. If someone has been trading Solana memecoins for six months, AI can help predict the next big opportunity, based on historical patterns. AI can do a better job of analyzing this data than humans can.
Marasigan: That sounds exciting! As someone who dabbles in coin trading, I’m definitely looking forward to that. Thank you so much, Wei and Beryl, for joining us and sharing your insights about Coins and YGG.
Keep watching the BitPinas webcast and read this website for interviews with the people who move the crypto industry in the Philippines forward.
This article is published on BitPinas: YGG Play Summit Press Conference: Play, Learn, and Work Panel Discussion
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